


A Welcome Visit

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Longing, M/M, Reunions, Romance, Snow, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a few years since Dean has seen Castiel, and to Dean it seems like they both have forgotten how to be around one another. Still, there's nothing more welcome than company on a hunt stretching over the holidays, and perhaps they'll both learn something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Welcome Visit

**Author's Note:**

> DeanCasWeek Secret Santa gift for theycallmecastiel. I really like how this turned out!

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Who’d want to hunt on the holiday week? Not Dean. Not because of the sacred family holiday per se, but because he couldn’t escape the cheer. It felt heavy upon his shoulders and messed with his sense of smell: there wasn’t a place, it seemed, that did not smell of gingerbread and mulled wine and electric candles and fake snow.  
Except that this year, he’d managed to hit a place that did have real snow. And… just how much of it – the white was thick enough on the parking lot to try and swallow his car whole.

No one wants to work on Christmas. That was something even a kid like Dean had figured out before he’d turned 12. Dad had been no exception, as he’d always  _tried_  to be home, or at the motel room serving as one at the very least. Thing was, the supernatural knew no seasons, so here he was like his dad had been a million times before, digging up the Impala’s wheels from the dirtied snow and contemplating giving up just to catch a cup of coffee inside. Each and every time someone opened the doors to the little building behind his back, the scents were there again, driving out the cold and the crisp smell of frost. The moment the heavy, large snowflakes started falling from the pitch black skies again, Dean straightened up and sighed in defeat. He’d made his decision. He wasn’t going anywhere just yet.  
The car was parked outside a diner dressed in its holiday bests: the lights, when Dean turned, seemed blinding bright and as he approached, it was like a whole new vertical sky of awkwardly coloured stars. No matter; it smelled so good he’d had a hard time avoiding it  _before_  meeting up with the old lady who’d seen something she probably really shouldn’t have and chatted her rather eccentric persona up for a good couple hours. Unlike most old ladies, she’d forgot to offer him sweets and tea or coffee and things she’d baked on her own, but everything considered, maybe it was too much to wish from each and every freshly traumatized lady he met.

Upon entering the diner, Dean slid out his phone for just a moment to check for messages. There was one that he opened before hitting a seat beside an empty table so heavily he felt the impact all the way up in his shoulders. It was from Sam, asking him the usual:  _why the radio silence? grew up and independent all of a sudden? sent some things to you by email and please don’t be too drunk  
_ Well, clearly the man was in luck, as Dean wasn’t drunk and didn’t feel like he had time to be so quite yet, even though he certainly would have hoped things were different for him. A waitress skipped to him – he laid down the phone and flashed a smile of worn charm at her.

”A cup of coffee and…”  
His eyes wandered past towards the array of goods for sale.  
”… and that – that ugly-looking Santa. I don’t want to know what it is, but I sure want to taste it.”

”Okay,” she returned, stretching the word in a manner that implied she’d been at work much too long for the day.  
Not surprising, really, considering the commotion. Dean had gotten the table because five minutes earlier, a larger group had left: the rest of the tables were still full, a sight not all too common for diners of this kind.  
Yet her demeanor was by no means unwelcoming, and the eye contact she held with him was warm and curious. Dean grimaced.  
”I have something on my face, don’t I?” he asked, leaning back towards the wall and chuckling.

”An oil stain across your left cheek – higher – there.”  
She laughed and shook her head, clicking off the pen and leaning weight from one foot to the other in a sign of departure.  
”Anything else?”

”No, I’m good,” Dean confirmed, still rubbing at the spot with a napkin, ”I just hope it’s not full marzipan.”

”It’s not, but it’s equally dangerous for your teeth. I’ll be back with it in just a moment and then you’ll see.”

 

*

The darkness was depressing outdoors, but from in here it seemed to enhance a magic that stemmed from warmth and the golden glow of cheap lamps and the scents of fresh coffee and baked goods. Dean decapitated the uncomfortably happy Santa and stuck a fork through his eyes, bringing the round candy-coloured, foam-like treat up to his lips without looking anywhere towards it. His concentration was on the snowfall outside, the thick clumps of flakes hitting the window next to him heavy and then tumbling down awkwardly all the way to the already frost-framed window pane.  
The head of Santa Claus was just as sweet and sticky as he’d expected, good for getting rid of the nagging demands of his palate for the sugar he’d been denied over the interview. Satisfied – and a little disgusted already – he downed the bit with a sip from his coffee and finally sent a message back to Sam.

_not dead, not drunk, not all too grown-up either; there’s a hot chick serving. imagine that. freaking monster’s avoiding leaving clues big time & i chatted up some charmer today & got the first potential leads that i’ll send your way asap. likely not coming back for christmas tho so rent some porn and have a night off or sth hermione_

Half a minute later, he got a new message. Even before it had opened, he knew exactly what it would say.

_Dean._

The judgemental tone was well-delivered, spreading a half-assed smirk over Dean’s lips. He’d even expected the sudden change from their casual, grammatically terrible exchange of information to this capitalized, punctuated sass.  
There was no need to reply, so he hid his phone in the pit of his pocket again, allowing his thoughts to linger at the other end of the line still: the echoing study, the aged but spotlessly clean kitchen, the corridor to his bedroom…  _home_. The diner’s scents mixed in with the dusty smell of books and stone that he so well knew from the bunker, the godawful Christmas songs translating to an echo in the hallways. He missed the place, wondering what it’d be like to have a Christmas there, but holidays with Sam were much alike each year. They met up for coffee at the dawn of day and then worked, worked, worked, or at least the younger did. Dean had mastered the art of not doing anything when he wasn’t on the field. The call of the comfort of his favourite armchair was strong even from this distance.

From all this imagining, a heavy longing had mixed in the weight of the man’s already burdened chest. He huffed into his coffee as he raised the cup and fought against the melancholy, but there it was, the usual Christmas-related sadness and longing for nothing in particular, yet for all that he had around him: the bustling of everyday life, all fired up for yet another Christmas, the stress of serving for the family, of hosting a good evening. The laughter of faceless children and the screaming of the one that hadn’t gotten the present he’d wanted, the creaking of an old chair as the weight of a guest settled upon it, the airless warm atmosphere of a kitchen too full of hot seasonal food that nobody really liked and the people still dining upon it.

Most of all, he longed for faces he’d not seen in a while, some of them long gone and some simply lost along the way. And then, as if his memories had summoned a ghost, someone sat opposite of him at the table. His eyes widened at the sight of the large tan coat, the blue tie against the white shirt – it couldn’t be, the damn tie was facing the right way, the angel had that stupid habit of…  
  
It was just someone, wasn’t it, or then he was hallucinating: the diner was full, of course the next guest would sit by the table that was the emptiest. Now it was coming: he saw the male in front of him draw breath from the way his chest moved – now it would come, the  _excuse me is this seat taken_ and the punch in his gut from the non-familiar voice after he’d dared to hope for another.  
Instead, he had the ( _un_ )usual.

”Hello, Dean.”

Damn the tears that charged up his eyes. Dean blinked rapidly as he raised his eyes, barely daring to look at the other’s face at all; the curve of his stubbled jaw, spotted with thick black close-cut hair as always, the pale pink of his dry lips, the sharp nose, the cheeks, the…

The younger raised his coffee cup up to his mouth so fast that the cooling but still warm liquid leaked over his upper lip almost as if licking the shape of his philtrum.

… the electrified blue of his eyes, surrounded by a thick line of lashes on the upper lid and the heavy bottom one, and the dark brown hair that received golden highlights from the low-hanging lamp just behind the other’s head between the seats of two tables.

”Cas…”  
It was a quiet, long, disbelieving breath that Dean let out rather than a greeting or a means of addressing the other. It simply came out, a symptom of shock and like a ripple from the aching of his quick-beating heart.

A faint, quick smile crossed the older’s lips. He looked down and seemed if not ashamed, then at least shy.  
There was a silence between them, a choked one filled with the buzzling of the diner around them, and it lasted and lasted until Dean felt his heart was going to explode and his mind was just the shades of blizzard from a broken television. It was then that the waitress popped up again, seemingly from nowhere.

”And what should I get you?” she asked, ready type in the order.  
Dean looked at her as if she’d broken through an invisible wall with some kind of superhuman strength and now acted like it was no big deal at all. Instead of looking at Castiel, she caught his eyes instead, smiling.

”He’ll have a coffee,” Dean heard himself say, holding onto that eye contact like his damn life depended upon it.

”Uh-huh.”  
She scribbled it down and nodded.  
”On the house.”

”Wow. Cool. Thanks.”  
When she was gone and Dean turned back towards Castiel, he noticed the male was looking at him in a manner that seemed like it might have gone on for most of the conversation. And still Dean had no words for him, none for himself either: the coffee got there before his words did.

”So… what… um, why’re you here?” he finally asked, his hand trembling as he brought his cup up to his lips.

Now it was clear it was shame that lingered upon the older’s features. Castiel reached for his coffee and drank it like he wasn’t quite certain how to do it, like he’d forgotten how drinking worked. Maybe he had. He hadn’t been there for a couple years now. Dean didn’t dare to count just how many had passed – the thought of time between them at all was like a cut across his sore chest.

”I… am exercising my freedom of choice,” the angel spoke after the silence had threatened to grow long, thick and uncomfortable again, ”and I thought – I wanted to see you.”

Dean blinked. It seemed impossible for him to look at the other for very long at a time, like he’d developed some kind of an oversensitivity to Castiel’s presence during the time he hadn’t been there. An allergy, almost. It certainly restricted his lungs like one.  
He’d also forgotten how to speak with him, and the words that had once come so easy around him were now lost and scattered and barred behind multiple solid doors that he had trouble wrestling open.

”So… how’d you find me?”

”You don’t carry the sigils anymore. I would say it was relatively easy.”

”Right.”  
Dean had trouble swallowing and drank instead, relieved that at least his system still remembered how to consume drink even if it had such immense difficulty performing more basic tasks.  
”So you’re just on a social visit. Like the good old times.”

”I suppose so.”

”Well, picked a nice time.”

It seemed so light, the conversation, yet each and every word was heavy like a thin container barely holding back a flood of real questions, and it wasn’t just Dean, either – he heard the same heaviness in Castiel’s words as he knew within his own, realising it had taken a lot of courage from the older to meet up with him here. As he glanced outdoors, realising he could not from here see to the porch, he wondered just how long the other had waited there in the snow before he’d dared to walk in – and just how long he’d waited before he’d decided to come down from heaven in the first place.  
His eyes flickered towards the angel again and he smiled.  
”Glad to see you, man.”

Castiel smiled as well and lowered his gaze back to the table.

 

*

Dean had a hard time believing it was for real when they settled in the creaky frozen-on-spot Impala, Castiel manning the shotgun as he always did when they were alone.  
”If I get this thing running, it’s a miracle,” the younger muttered as he near ritualistically pushed the key in, counted to three and turned.  
A low chuckle rose from his chest as the car let out a small sound and died again.

”No panic yet.”

And not on the third try, either. On the fourth, the car finally stayed on, engine purring and shaking the body rythmically. The hardest part was getting it out of the snow, even though Dean had clawed tracks for the wheels to climb through. The road was better and as soon as they got off the slushed parking lot, the element of terror shed from the motion revealing the usual from below. The motel wasn’t all too far from here, a ten minute drive in a weather not like this one, but with the heavy snowfall, it’d take twice that at worst. Yet they were in no hurry: Castiel watched the dark scenery from the passenger’s side window and Dean had his eyes more upon him than upon the road, keeping the speed lower than it could have been and what he would have at any other time picked for a weather like this. He was so content here in his slowly warming car with his best friend at his side, it was like a time machine past so much of the pain and into an era when he’d still felt like he had bones to break.  
”So, how’re things upstairs?” he asked casually, street lamp by street lamp sliding past them.

”I’d like to say they’re settling down,” the angel replied quietly, ”but the truth of it is that Heaven remains chaotic.”

Dean rolled his eyes to an audience of none.  
”No offense, Cas, but I think that’s the usual state of things.”

The angel chuckled.  
”I’m afraid you’re right.”  
He drew a long deep breath and adjusted against the backrest of the seat, appearing rigid in the way he sat, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for him; things had been different when he’d been graceless or even when he’d just spent a longer while down, but he always had trouble seeming natural and relaxed when he’d been away for a longer while, existing as what he’d once called ‘a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent’. The whole thing sounded stressful to Dean.  
”You, um, you’ve heard my updates, right?” the younger continued, referring to his rarely ceasing prayers.

Castiel nodded.  
”I’m glad that you have a life you’re content with.”

”For once, right?”  
Truth was, he ached every day still from wounds that he feared would never heal, and from the losses that would haunt him to the day he’d die and probably beyond. Like a veteran of war, that was the cost he’d accepted: he was one of the few surviving souls, burdened with knowledge of those who hadn’t as the price he paid for staying alive. No matter how many times his broken bones and slow-healing injuries were treated in full, the dents in his soul remained as painful as ever. It wasn’t a bad life he led, but he was as weary and thin on the inside as ever.  
Sometimes, he’d spoken these words in his prayers, and he knew the angel understood what he meant.  
”It’s a good life for me. And you?”

They looked into one another’s eyes for a moment too long, just as they always had. Tearing away from that connection may have been inevitable and necessary, but Dean wanted it like he wanted to get rid of one of his healthy limbs.  
As if to make up for that he laid a hand on the seat between them, just close enough to feel the warmth of the other’s radiate against it but not close enough to touch. The hand gripping the wheel was relaxed and steered them on steady and certain, familiar with the movements of the car like it was an extension of his own body.

”Dangerously close to the existence I knew before. It’s timeless and burdened, restrained like constantly wearing chains. I needed to drop out of it before I forget how to breathe.”

”Sounds dull.”

”It is.”  
In the brief silence that parted the words from those that would follow, Castiel’s palm pressed gently but firmly over the back of Dean’s hand, stalling his breath and causing the car to make a brief turn to the middle of the road.  
  
The younger swallowed thickly, expression frozen but feeling warm on the inside like after swallowing a good mouthful of rum.

”The state of things – it’s kept me busy. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you earlier. I always wanted to, it’s just…”

”Out of your control, I know. Someone’s gotta keep the ranks in order.”

”Those that remain.”

”Yeah. Can’t afford another full-blown civil war, heh.”

Castiel’s response was a quiet hum of agreement. His fingers spread loosely over Dean’s hand and the younger could feel him tracing the leather of the seat with them, the soft twitching of the muscles that pressed against his skin.

”Look, Cas…”  
Dean swallowed and licked his lips uncertainly as he arranged words that’d at least sound as convincing as he hoped to the angel who was as bad as he was at accepting forgiveness.  
”I understand that, I really do. I knew you were there, somewhere, that you’re listening. It’s not like we parted enemies. You’re still family, it doesn’t just stop when you’re needed elsewhere. I know that you care, that’s a lot to me, okay? It’s like you’re always – it’s like I can just pick up the phone and give you a call. I missed you, but I didn’t feel like you’re… gone. I just felt like you were away. And I missed you. I’m glad you’re here.”

The only response he got was the other’s fingers retreating from the seat’s firm surface and around his hand instead. His instinctive response was to tense up but as he relaxed, he allowed his own hand to take a hold of Castiel’s in turn. A puff of air escaped him as he hardened his mind and ordered his heart to calm down, not that it mattered as the older with his superhuman senses had certainly by then picked up on the surge of adrenaline that had flooded Dean at contact.

That was the way they made the rest of the drive to the motel: a few times Dean had to use both hands to keep them firmly on the track and to make a safe turn at a crossroads, but he always returned his hand to Castiel’s. It got more natural each time and when they had to part at the parking lot, he felt strange with his hand retreating in his pocket without the warmth of the older’s between his fingers.  
Most of his stuff was inside the room already; he’d spent the night and feared he’d have to spend a good few more still. What remained in the car was in a single bag that he heaved up on his shoulder before locking the doors and leading the way to room 38.  
”How long did you plan your social visit, Cas?” he asked as he bumped against the room’s door to open the lock that didn’t work unless weight was applied onto it.

The angel turned to look along the porch away from him and turned his palms over in a minimalistic sign of indifference.  
”I didn’t plan. I’d like to stay at least for the night.”

Dean grimaced, pulled the door open and walked in. He landed his relatively heavy bag on the floor before kicking his shoes off beside it.  
”The usual creepy stare-at-me-while-I-sleep kinda visit, eh?”

Castiel shrugged.  
”It’s not late yet. I can leave before you go to sleep if you want me to.”  
He closed the door behind them and when he turned to face the room again, he was suddenly face to face with Dean instead.

”No,” the younger said with a hint of a smile, ”I don’t want you to leave. We’ll figure something out. Besides…”  
He turned and landed heavy on the bed – the nearest seat to sit on.  
”I just had coffee. It’s 8pm and I’m not going to bed until, uh, I’d say one. I’d planned a little different kind of an evening but now that you’re here, I say we catch up and make merry instead. Or, well, I’ll get a little drunk and you’ll just sit there stupid drinking a single beer the whole night because it’s pointless.”

The angel aimed a done look at the ceiling.

”Cas?” Dean called more uncertainly than he’d announced his change of plans, ”Could you do me a favour?”

Castiel looked back at him, curious.

”Take off the layers. Pull the shirt out of your pants and pretend you’re – you know – not all official for a change.”

Apparently the older felt like doing him a favour: he took off the overcoat and the suit jacket from underneath and hung them above Dean’s shoes. Dean shed the jacket he’d worn, too, and rolled it up and planted it on top of his larger bag that had waited for him by the end of the bed. Then he stood up again and walked up to Castiel, who’d just begun pulling the hem of his shirt out from under the belt. His movements slowed down as Dean approached him and stopped completely, fingers still holding onto the white fabric, as the younger reached to pull loose the tie around his neck. He didn’t remove it completely, just tugged it down and crooked, and when that was done he pushed aside Castiel’s hands from his shirt and finished what he’d started. Then he stepped back to give the whole of the other’s a look of approval and a satisfied nod.

”Looking good.”

Castiel flashed an uncertain smile at him.  
There was a tension between them that Dean had almost forgotten, the kind of an electric field, a magnetism, that froze the man’s mind and made his heart flutter. The scent that lingered strong around the angel now that they’d spent a minute airing his clothes all over didn’t make it easier: it was better and more welcome than the scent of the diner’s offerings and clouded Dean’s mind like alcohol. He felt that stupid twitchy smile on him that seemed to follow moments like these and the desire to do something, push through the barrier of social expectations and shyness and fear, was so tempting that he shook in the warm air of the motel room’s.  
”It’s unusual to see you in a room with just one bed,” Castiel commented without ever taking his eyes off of Dean.

The younger let out a small yelp that he’d intended to be a sound of agreement, not of surprise.  
”Believe me,” he breathed out anxiously, ”I know.”

”I knew you travel without Sam now, of course.”

”It’s different to see it.”

”Yes. It is.”

The damn tension just grew worse and worse despite the casual chatter. Dean cleared his throat in an attempt to shake his brain into a more functional state again and turned, chuckling breathlessly.  
”On the other hand,” he said, masking the nervousness into a facade of cheerful lightness, ”it means I get a queensize bed and can sleep horizontally across it if I want to. And…”  
He hit the bed with a bounce and lay down on it to open the pack of beer next to the black bag.  
”… apparently I do, because that’s pretty much how I wake up every day. Here’s your beer.”

The angel had followed him there and reached now to take the bottle from him. Dean grabbed one for himself and tried not to down most of it at once to calm himself down, yet still managed to drink nearly a half of it on the first gulp. He patted the bed to invite the older on it, a rather nerve-wrecking idea in his current state of mind but as he’d already claimed the object for his own, he reserved the right to back up over to the wall, leaving a good distance between himself and Castiel when he sat.  
With all this precaution and effort put into killing the tension, he still couldn’t mask the feverish look from his eyes nor the hunger with which he watched the older, and just as well he couldn’t shake the feeling that the longing was by far not one-sided. He’d been here so often with so many people he knew the game, the looks, the breaths, the half-performed movements and the nervous twitches that masked the desire to move forwards, but with Castiel, the stakes had always been too high. It was like standing next to a valley where a landslide was headed for, just a step away from being washed away with the masses, and holding breath trying to fight back the urge to just take it. Giving up wasn’t in Dean’s nature, but neither was holding back.  
It was the most inconvenient place to be stuck in, permanently dizzy and breathless and tense but unable to let go of the addiction.

It felt too good to stay.

He watched Castiel drink, getting lost in the sight of the male’s lips wrapping around the mouth of the bottle and the liquid that ran through the neck into his mouth in turn, and Dean felt his own lips parting to let out the air that his nose seemed to be too small for. He breathed in that same way, deep and heavy, and pulled up his leg to rest over the other in a rather regretful attempt to not seem as aroused as he was.  
Such a strange way to end up so soon, but just like the surprise he’d felt when Castiel had shown up, the need seemed to have grown a thousandfold while they’d been apart.

When Castiel looked back at him – caught him staring, more of – he brought his own bottle to his mouth but didn’t even try to look away. Heat charged up his cheeks that the brief walk through the cold from the car to the motel room had already turned red.  
Absently, he drank another long gulp, barely blinking. It was almost comical how Castiel mirrored that movement, but  _hell_ , Dean thought with a thick swallow, he went right to the bottom of it – not held back by any restraints that got in the way of Dean’s drinking, the angel simply did away with the politeness in a single gulp and laid down the empty bottle on the floor.

He stood up and Dean closed his eyes as if trying to hide from the situation. His fingers bent around the bottle more firmly and he shivered, the breath that he let out shaken by the involuntary movement. He heard the other moving, coming closer, felt him push aside the bottle Dean was holding onto for dear life, and he was already raising his head in a subconscious invitation despite the full-blown war that was waged in a threateningly deep silence inside him.  
He smelled the beer in the older’s breath that came out different from his, still steadily through the nose and just the slightest bit nervous instead of the panicked manner that Dean felt himself breathe through his open mouth and slightly, annoyingly, trembling jaw. The way he pressed his lips against Dean’s was slow and light but the pressure grew, and as he felt Dean part his lips more in turn and clumsily catch the lower of Castiel’s between his, the older’s touch got more driven and instead of simply seeking contact, he kissed the younger’s lips in a manner that was half-explorative and half-passionate. Dean raised his hand to touch the older’s face, sliding his palm and fingers along the cheek to the jaw and down his neck and then, when he felt Castiel’s fingers brush against the back of his palm, took that hand in his and slid his fingers between the other’s.

His back and then the back of his head both hit the wall, and he felt the angel’s weight shifting on the bed right in front of him. Blind, he nudged his bottle between the wall and the bed and hoped it wouldn’t turn over and spill all over the place, and with his now free hand he grabbed the male’s hair and pulled him closer, closer, closer until he had to balance himself to the bed on Dean’s side so as to not fall right onto him.

The kiss never broke to any of that shifting and gripping and grasping, but it sure turned breathless and sloppy and their lips got lost until finally Castiel raised his face towards the ceiling. At the feel of it Dean opened his eyes and went in for the neck; his tingling, numbing lips turned attention to the skin at the side of the bared neck and his hand escaped from the hold of the other’s to press against his chest instead. He felt the vessel’s heart beating (was it still a vessel when it was Castiel’s own?) right underneath his palm and he chuckled against the sensitive skin which he was kissing, feeling a shiver run down the older’s spine.  
He used teeth ever so gently, picking a bunch of flesh between them and holding still for just a moment to see how the older reacted, and then returned to sliding his tongue along an unknown path all the way up to the other’s ear, which he caught between his lips and sucked on for a moment before finally releasing it and ending with a breathless laughter.  
The tension was finally broken – not in the long, painful way Dean had always thought it would dissolve, to distance and time and the sheer impossibility of its self, but in a way that now ran through his veins like molten gold, lighting him up and reviving him like the very touch was healing the damage he’d feared would never go away. Of course, it was a temporary relief, but one that he’d longed for and one that he’d felt without which his life would never be quite complete.  
  
Clumsily he tracked the angel’s chest, finding a button below the loose-hanging tie, and after just a moment’s consideration – just how far was he aiming? – he let go of it and planted a lighter kiss on the older’s lips.  
Castiel watched him intently, keen like a bird of prey, and only now Dean realised consciously that he was on his knees, hips above Dean’s, and breathing just as heavy as Dean was.

”How’s that for a plan?”

The older’s words lingered between them, Dean’s hand reaching for the bottle still firmly gripped by the mattress. He drank hastily and uncaringly, emptied the thing and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.

”I like it,” he said in a quiet and broken and breathless yet amused and aroused voice.  
The white shirt’s fabric bent soft between his fingers when he returned to the middle of it and closed it inside his fist, having reconsidered his decision to leave it there; it was hard to move like this, hard to aim to land on his back where he wanted and not so that his head would hit the wall he’d previously been pressed against, but he managed it. Castiel allowed him to pull him on and fell on top of him still balanced over one hand, the other escaping to where Dean’s grip was now breaking around his shirt. They watched one another and Dean smiled crookedly, a little ashamed under that piercing look of the older’s.

”I couldn’t figure out why we’re holding back. If there ever was a reason, I can’t remember it anymore. So I…”  
Castiel’s words faded and his brows knit a little closer in consideration as if he’d lost his point and was now chasing it through the mist that Dean knew so well from experience.

”It’s good, Cas. I wanted to jump you for ages. I just couldn’t. I don’t think there ever was a reason. We just… felt like we couldn’t, because of this and then that. Like that – you’re an angel, I’m a man, you’re… male, I’m – I don’t know what the hell I’m even saying anymore.”

Finally, the other’s seriousness broke. He cracked a smile and turned his head down, eyes closing, an amused huff passing through where he held back a chuckle.  
”For a long while, I felt wrong desiring you,” he said then, returning a warm if a little sad look at Dean, ”I felt like I was a burden that I would never wish to force upon you.”

”I just figured you didn’t care.”

”About what?”  
  
”About sex. Dude – Cas – can we skip the talk or at least have it later, because if I’m all honest with you, I feel really damn uncomfortable in my jeans and I’d like to do things to you now that we got started with that. Please.”

With a wide grin Castiel rolled off from on top of him and landed heavy on his side next to him instead. His palm pressed against Dean’s swiftly expanding abdomen and fell down with it as well, fingers bent over his side in a manner that threatened to tickle the younger through the cloth of his shirt.  
The look the angel cast at him had so much humanity in it that Dean knew they’d broken the chains he’d claimed to wear again. It felt good to witness.

”We can.”


End file.
